The Portland Development Commission is preparing to spend more than $1 million in taxpayer money -- $450,000 of it through loans, almost $650,000 in building improvements -- to bring a brewery and family friendly brewpub to Lents.

Residents of the outer Southeast Portland neighborhood have complained for years about a lack of basic services, and though the city’s urban renewal efforts have helped make the community feel safer and more accessible, retail and restaurant options have been slow to arrive.

The team behind Z. Haus Brewing initially approached the PDC hoping to get help finding a location in St. Johns. Instead, they're opening on Southeast 92nd Avenue in a 25,000-square-foot building bought by the city in 2009 and briefly home to Ararat Bakery, which the city helped relocate to Lents but eventually evicted after bakery owners stopped paying rent. The city wrote off its Ararat loans.

on a lease for the building -- Z. Haus will sign on for 10 years with two five-year extensions -- at their meeting Wednesday. In the interim, I talked with two PDC officials, Trang Lam and Bruce Wood, about the deal and why leaders of the city’s urban renewal arm thinks it makes sense.

Their comments have been edited for space and clarity.

First, Lam talked about how the brewery fits into the broader plan for Lents; a five-year "action plan" for the neighborhood will be made public in April.

Lam: What we found through our work with both the community and other bureaus it hat 92nd Avenue is the main street or commercial corridor for Lents Town Center. It has storefront improvements that have already been made. The brewing project adds an anchor that the town center needs to continue to build.

We’ve been working with this group for over two years. They originally came to us looking for something in North Portland, and they were also looking in Hillsboro. We brought them to Lents.

We've created what we call a "brewpub desert map." It showed a lack of brewpubs, more so in the family oriented/restaurant brewpub category. This is family oriented, kids can come. It's more a Laurelwood or McMenamins. This is something the community wanted. There is a lack of this amenity in Lents.

This team has a lot of experience. They already run a brewpub in Old Town. They know this kind of business. We have confidence that they can make it work.

Bruce Wood, who joined the PDC last year to focus on commercial real estate, talked about the particulars of the deal. In addition to $450,000 in loans, the PDC will spend $250,000 on tenant-specific improvements and another $389,808 on "life/safety improvements" to the building at 5716 SE 92nd Avenue.

Wood: The building itself is going through a change of use in order to support this tenant. There were other deficiencies within the building, so the total cost is not just about this tenant. There are some fundamental things that have to be done to occupy the building. This building was not sprinkler-ed. The water lines were deficient. The electrical panels were deficient. The $389,000 in improvements is for anyone to occupy with this kind of use.

We’re very comfortable that they know what they’re doing, and that this is going to be money well invested. It’s a great chance to be successful because of the people coming in, and because we’re making very practical and reasonable enhancements to the building.

And then it will go back on the tax rolls. You’ll have a successful business, bringing in customers, paying back the loans and contributing to the tax base.